1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an apparatus for supplying electronic parts having a polarity, more particularly is directed to the means thereof, that is, to the structure, by which the electronic parts having polarity among chip-type electronic parts, such as MELF diodes, or the like, are arranged in the order of a predetermined polarity sense and supplied to printed circuit boards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic parts mounted on printed circuit boards, such as resistances, condensers, diodes, etc. are recently being changed from parts having lead wires to chip-type parts having no lead wires. The chip-type electronic parts which are constant in shape and size, independently of the kind of electronic part, are convenient to mount in predetermined positions on the printed circuit board by an automatic parts supplying device.
The applicant for patent for the present invention has already disclosed such a device for supplying the chip-type parts, for example, in Japanese Patent opening No. 59-129499.
In the disclosed device, the chip-type electronic parts stored in a magazine are taken out one by one and arranged in order in a pipe. And then the arranged parts are fed one by one out of the pipe and conveyed to predetermined positions on a printed circuit board by a parts gripper.
Included in the chip-type electronic parts are parts which have a polarity, such as MELF diodes or the like, and such parts having the polarity must be mounted on the printed circuit board with consideration for their polarity. In the above-mentioned automatic parts supplying device, the electric parts must, therefore, be fed out of the pipe in the predetermined polarity sense, and further, defective parts and non-conforming parts must be detected to be eliminated.
Thus, rendered indispensably necessary for the apparatus for supplying electronic parts having a polarity, is a device by which the parts taken out of the magazine are discriminated so as to arrange the parts on the order of a predetermined polarity sense, and the defective parts and non-conforming parts are detected so as to sort them out from the non-defective parts.
Various devices have been proposed hithereto. However, the conventional devices are very complicated in stucture and are on a large scale, so that their consumption of electric power is large, and further, their reliability is low. In addition, it is not easy to change the sense of the polarity of the electronic parts which are fed out of the pipe.